led by queen Henrietta Maria, Prince Rupert and the king himself were ..... those names that have ye crosse before them did dye of ye plague;from which.
Published by Maney Publishing (c) The Departments of Medieval and Modern History, University of Birmingham
'A MISERABLE, STINKING, INFECTED TOWN': PESTILENCE, PLAGUE AND DEATH IN A CIVIL WAR GARRISON, NEWARK 1640-16491 By STUART B. JENNINGS Nottingham Trent University
To the early modem mind, the association of soldiers and warfare with the spread of typhus, plague and other epidemic diseases was long established. Typhus or 'camp fever' had first been noted in Europe at the end of the fifteenth century and Girolamo Fracastoro wrote the first substantial medical treatise on it in 1546.2 By 1643 Lady Fanshawe was able to observe and comment during the siege of Oxford 'at the windows the sad spectacle of war, sometimes plague, sometimes sicknesses of other kinds, by reason of so many people packed together.'3 For the civilians of Newark, disease and death were to be an ever-present reality throughout the period of the first civil war. As this paper will show, disease and in particular typhus and later plague were to kill more of the local population than the fighting ever did. From 1643-1645, typhus the occupational disease of armies and an inevitable consequence of the civil war, surfaced with lethal regularity over the winter months. This disease was quickly communicated to civilian populations whenever towns were placed under siege, and Newark experienced three of these, or when troops were billeted in them. Several royalist armies from outside the region were to be accommodated in or around the town at intervals throughout the war and in 1645-46 two armies, the English Northern Association Army and the Scottish Army of the Solemn League and Covenant invested the garrison right up to the outer defences. The deprivation, filth and sheer volume of people concentrated in such a small area, proved to be catalysts for the spread of disease. Over the last four decades, local and regional studies of the civil war have enabled us to assess the social and economic impact of the fighting upon communities. Research into towns such as Bristol, Gloucester, Bath and Worcester and regions such as the south midlands and East Anglia have shown that taxation, destruction of property and disruption of trade caused considerable hardship for civilian populations.4 An assessment of the demographic consequences of the war and the interaction between military and civilian mortality rates has proven much more difficult to undertake because of the fragmentary nature of the surviving evidence. Entries into the parish registers
Published by Maney Publishing (c) The Departments of Medieval and Modern History, University of Birmingham
52
MIDLAND
HISTORY
were often overlooked or omitted in the face of epidemic or in the aftermath of fighting and military casualties were often buried where they fell or in plots away from the churchyard.5 In the face of such social disruption, the fact that an attempt was made to maintain the registers is itself a testimony to the resilience of community life. The town of Newark remained a royalist garrison throughout the whole of the first civil war and this facilitated the maintaining of its civic and ecclesiastical records for most of the period. Although many of its military records were possibly destroyed before the surrender of the garrison, so as to avoid any recriminations, there remains enough surviving evidence to add considerably to the ongoing debate about the demographic impact of the civil war. As will be shown, this evidence serves to clarify the questions that remain unanswered as well as provide insight into areas that previously historians could only conjecture about. By examining the mortality rates for Newark over the four decades leading up to 1642, a clearer picture of how devastating the war was to be for ordinary citizens can be ascertained. The town had never been a healthy place to live in for the majority of its citizens. Situated alongside the river Trent, with its associated problems of flooding and water-borne infections, and with its narrow, overcrowded alleys and areas of poor quality housing, Newark was always susceptible to outbreaks of disease, which affected both young and old. The size of the town's population in the seventeenth century has proven difficult to assess with any degree of certainty. Based on the figure of seventy burials that occurred over the year 1599-1600, A. C. Wood has suggested that it had a population of over 2,000 at the start of the century.6 Later work on the Hearth Tax returns of 1674 has estimated a population of around 1,444, but this low figure probably reflects an under-recording of households by about 25 per cent. Estimates based on parish r~gister data have suggested a population of 2,774, but the multiplier used is now generally regarded as too high.7 For our period of 1640-1660, a round figure of 2,000 for the town's population does not contrast greatly with the various estimates arrived at from the different sources and provides us with a solid basis to interpret the trends identified in the parish registers. The various estimates paint a picture of a population that was generally static for most of the century and may even have declined slightly. As we shall see, the traumatic events of the 1640s and 1650s may have contributed to this decline to a certain extent.
Published by Maney Publishing (c) The Departments of Medieval and Modern History, University of Birmingham
'A MISERABLE,
STINKING,
INFECTED
53
TOWN'
Table 1 Pre-civil war mortality figures for Newark Period
Number Total Annual of Years Funerals Mean
Total Adult Total Children Adult Annual Child Annual Deaths Mean Deaths Mean
1600-1603
4
373
93.25
186
46.5
187
46.75
5 5 5 5
465 431 445 451
93 86.2 89 90.2
260 256 420 289
52 51.2 84 57.8
205 175 [25](2) 162
41 35 [5] 32.4
(I)
1621-1625 1626-1630 1631-1635 1636-1640
(1) Only incomplete burial records survive from 1604-1609, but for this fouryear period the age of every person over one year old is recorded in the register. This makes the distinction between children (under 16) and adults very clear. (2) Details distinguishing adult from child burials are not accurately recorded for this this period. Full family reconstruction would be required to clarify this, which is beyond the scope of this article. Table 1 provides us with mean burial totals at Newark for five-year periods in the two decades leading up to the civil wars and also for the first four years of the century. The overall picture conveyed by these figures is of a burial average that did not greatly deviate from around ninety per annum for most of this period. There does appear to have been a slight improvement between the high rate of 93.25 at the start of the century down to 86.2 by the end of the l620s. Yet, during the 1630s average burial rates began to rise again and the years 1639 and 1640 witnessed a considerable rise in the number of burials (see Table 2). Table 2 Annual burial data used for Table 1 Year
adult
child
Year
adult
child
Year
1600 45
35
1623
63
47
1601 39
45
1624
57
1602 75
74
1625
1603 27
33
1621 28 1622 44
adult
child
Year
1629 40
46
1635 88
5
24
1630 60
45
1636 50
24
68
34
1631 83
16
1637 47
21
1626
60
21
1632 71
1638 58
33
48
1627
49
26
1633 81
1639 72
32
52
1628
47
37
1634 97
1640 62
52
2
adult
child
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54
MIDLAND
HISTORY
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